10.12.99
Posted in General
at 9 pm
Oct 12 Tue (05 PM)
Well the PC now has over 400 MP3 tracks in it. Lots of different stuff. I’m concentrating on getting Eric’s discs ripped since he’s leaving at the end of the month. I figured I ought to get his stuff then later I can focus on getting more of my collection in here at work. The Depeche Mode and Nick Cave selections are pretty thin. Mostly unreleased live material that’s _only_ found on the net.
I’m drifting a bit right now, and that’s okay. I don’t have any major projects bearing down on me, just lots of little things scattered around to do, but none of them big enough to document. Just little loose ends. They annoy me to no end.
Amy and I are contemplating getting one of the 11 game packages for the Blazers. It’s a bit steep, but I think it would make a great birthday present for her. She and the whole of greater Portland seem really buzzed about the Blazers this year. Seems like this is the best season to get these kind of tickets.
In the next couple of days the full version of the web site/flash site that I’ve been working on should go live. I’ll be sure to post the URL once it does. I’m not taking any credit for the design or structure of the site, as most of it was developed by another (now defunct) web design shop. It’s amazing how many mistakes they made both in copy and in design and architecture.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot of work to do, but with any luck the next revision will clean up the site even further.
For the rest of the week it looks like I’ll be working on internal projects, most of which will not see the light of day for months. 🙁 Ugg. I hate that. I like being able to point to my work and get feedback from the visitors. I guess I’m just an exhibitionist. 🙂
Newtvana has been very helpful to me. Stuff to remember, music and books to buy, and movies to rent have all been added and maintained. Nothing seems to get lost. One surprising aspect: even thought I’ve been using pretty heavily, I’m still only 57% through my first set of batteries. At this rate, I should go through them at abut a set per month. Not bad.
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10.07.99
Posted in General
at 12 pm
Looks like the apartment has slipped on by. The landlord was buttered up by another couple, and they got the place. But the guy did return our application fee, so that was pretty cool. It’s too bad, because the landlord seemed like a good guy, honest, and a sense of humour.
Cancel the change of address cards for now.
—
Last night was my second class at PSU. It went pretty well and I happy about how the class is coming along, though I wish I could pick up the pace a bit more. I’ve decided that instead of trying to make some enormous outline of everything that needs to be covered in the class, in order, I’ll instead make each topic into little modules and use the syllubus as a guideline, but not a strict set of marching orders.
This will give me the rigor of having notes and points to cover for each topic, but the flexibility of being able to discuss topics in a manner that befits the class flow.
I’m starting to get a feel of how the class flows, and when things are clicking or not. It’s nice to see when the thoughts and concepts are pouring into their eyes and ears and still being able to come out through their fingertips.
It’s exciting. 🙂
—
Dark Side Rising: Today I’m the not so proud receiver of a PC. It’s a Pentium III from Dell and takes up the other half of my desk.
(Now with the 17″ from the PC and the 21″ for the Mac, I’ll probably start glowing in the dark. At least Amy will be able to use me as a night light.)
Monitor, speakers, keyboard, the whole bit. It’s for the Cold Fusion development suite that we’re going to be working with (and the Oracle stuff after that), but I figure I can make some lemonade from this by making it a dual boot Linux/Windows box. At least then I’ll be able to play with a UNIX box that’s not in a production environment. I’ve not had that opportunity before. I can crash it all I want and not worry about loosing the company’s e-mail server. (I’ve only done that once… honest! Sorry Jock…) 🙂
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10.04.99
Posted in General
at 8 pm
Amy and I have finally found a new place to live!
It’s number one attribute is that it’s not on a busy street. In fact, it’s around the corner from the Clinton Street theater. It’s a nice place, two floors and two bedrooms, one of which will be a great office for our computers. The landlord, (who has taken a liking to us) is replacing most of the carpet, the linoleum in the kitchen and painting. There’s a ton more outlets in the apartment, and the bathroom actually has a counter and storage under the sink. Woo Hoo! 🙂
There are no laundry facilities, but there’s a washer and dryer hook up in the apartment. Looks like we’re going to be looking at a good sized purchase soon. Until then I’ll be hoofing it to the laundromat.
All those who need it, we will have our new address soon and will be sending it out. With any luck, our phone number won’t change, which would be a real boon. And of course the e-mail addresses will remain the same as well.
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10.01.99
Posted in General
at 4 pm
I’ve just been in heaven with some of the ads running on TV this month. First there’s the Apple ‘tank’ commercials declaring the G4 to be a supercomputer and the Pentiums to be ‘harmless’, then there’s the Gap ad running a cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. If VW started running ad for a re-release of the Karmann-Ghia, I’d likely fall over dead on the spot.
I’ve finally got Newtvana to connect with the NCU package on my machine at home. The next step is to write a post from Newtvana and transfer it to Dwelling by hand. The step after that is to get the dial-up connections to work properly so I can surf directly from my Newton. Very cool. I’ll also pick up the VT100 emulation package so I can telnet.
I’ve been roped into the North by Northwest conference. D and E have been down there off and on the past couple of days. Today I was down there walking through the conference rooms and sitting in on the panel discussions. It’s interesting stuff, but I’m afraid this is going to be *yet another* direction that D’s going to take the company. Though I did get a NxNW arm band out of it. Maybe Amy and I will go out and see some music tonight.
[…]
Just got a call from Amy. Perhaps I’ll just work on some scripts tonight. (See previous entry regarding her Group.) 🙂
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09.29.99
Posted in General
at 9 pm
Sep 29 Wed (09 AM)
I know I’ve been saying that I was going to reduce the amount of ‘stuff’ in my life, get things off of my To Do list before taking anything else on *but*… the best laid plans, etc.
Yep, tonight’s the first class of my course at PSU. I hope I’m pre-pared, but I’ve still got those first class jitters. Amy gave me a great pep talk last night, and I think I’m ready to make a strong showing. I just hope everything’s setup in the classroom properly. There will be a full 12 students, though one already contacted me saying that she won’t be able to make the first class.
I also agreed to help out Amy’s group with some CGI/Perl/Forms stuff. Nothing too complicated, and I’m happy to have the chance to help out this cause, but it is another thing on the To Do list.
Of course getting that Newton sent me off on a info gathering spree, signing up with mailing lists, visiting web sites and downloading software. The Newton Connection Utilities package is conflicting with something on my machine, but I don’t have the time to figure it out yet, so I’m still stuck entering things by hand to get them across from the Newton to my Mac and back.
Speaking of which, if anyone knows how to get DragThing 2.0 working on System 7.5.5, drop me a line. I kep getting a ‘need the Scriptable Finder’ error, but the Finder Scripting Extension 1.2 doesn’t load properly.
I did however get my new glasses, so I’ll be able to see my student’s faces tonight. The Rx got a bit worse in my right eye, but that’s to be expected. Nearsightedness is an occupational hazzard. In fact I read that there’s a direct corrolation between the success of a college graduate’s GPA and the amount of vision loss due to nearsightedness.
Maybe we ought to figure out some way of putting books on billboards.
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09.26.99
Posted in General
at 10 am
Sep 26 Sun (10 AM)
Last Friday a co-worker of mine *gave* me his Newton MessagePad 2000. (!!!!) I was rather surprised, and very elated. 🙂 I’ve been an Apple fan for a decade now, and had always lusted after the Newton, but could never justify the cost, even of a used model. Well Gary had been using his MP2k for a couple of years, but his use of it had wittled down to check his mail while at his cabin. Then over the summer he got an iMac and found it was easy enough for him to grab the iMac itself and throw it in his backseat when heading out that he didn’t take the MP2k with him at all.
He had told me about looking into selling it and I was surely tempted, but had to decline as I was still building Amy and mine’s money situation up to something sustainable, and clearing out some old debts, and saving to move.
Anyway, Gary never really found a great place to sell it, (a couple of places never returned his e-mails) so he gave it to me. He said “I wanted it to go somewhere that I knew it would be really useful.”
Gary is now known as Cool Gary. 🙂
So, this weekend I’ve been cruising the web sites, found this list, read the FAQ at This Old Newton, and familiarizing myself with the Setups, Preferences, and HWR and editing techniques. Damn if the thing isn’t already 95% accurate or so. (Still having problems with “v” and “r” though.)
He gave me all of his accessesories including the 10MB Flash card, the MegaHertz CruiseCard 28.8 Modem, a Newton keyboard, and a nice leather cell phone/MP carrying case. I still haven’t really tried to sync the Newton to my Mac, but that will come in time.
Anyway, with any luck I hope that this mailing list I’ve subscribed to is similar to the Tandy Model 100 list that I’m on. A full decade after the last of that family of portables rolled off the assembly line, there’s an active, responsive group of people who share their knowledge and time, graciously and generously.
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09.24.99
Posted in General
at 7 pm
Sep 24 Fri (05 PM)
Sorry about that.
Seems that the dns for powertalk.com got seriously messed up, and made FPO and Dwelling unreachable for a couple of days. Everything seems fine now though.
There’s a potential that I might have to move my site to another address, but that would still only be 4 in 5 years. Not too bad, though this next time will lilkely be the final one as I think I’ll get it onto a domain that I own, wholesale. I may not be able to spare the room for all the graphics, but those I can toss on another server and change the pointers at will. The HTML page themselves will stay in one last place.
This week’s been difficult. I heard on Monday that my great aunt died. She lived in Forest Grove, about 45 minutes out of Portland. I didn’t see her much, and knew her only somewhat. The service was today. Very serene, very beautiful. There was lots of family that I hadn’t seen and hardly knew their names, but it was nice. It wasn’t nearly the dreary experience that I always dread funerals will be. There were smiles of long lost relatives, stories shared, memories passed around like the bottle of wine at dinner.
More later, perhaps.
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09.19.99
Posted in General
at 1 pm
Sep 19 Sun (01 AM)
This is very cool. Really cool. It’s one thing to see the logo you design on a web site, but nhyunyjyujyujm 🙂 it’s something completely different to see it on the face of a Real-Life-ObjectTM.
Eric (co-worker) had them made up and gave them out to the whole crew. I’m sure everyone else liked them, but for me it was extra special. I’ve seen stuff that I’ve made on brochures, web sites, business cards, t-shirts, books, newspapers, spinning in 3D and on video tape, but this takes the cake.
Amy and I are still trying to figure out what I should get for my birthday, having no luck with the clothes shopping today (though the store she really had her sights set on was closed by the time we got out of the house) so we’ll try again tomorrow. Miller’s Outpost and Eddie Bower were the only ones we really tried. Didn’t get to Structure either.
I also got my Fall class syllabus posted in the WebDev section. One more thing off the To Do list.
Finally you may notice that I’ve enclosed Dwelling within the template of the For Placement Only layout. It takes it a bit longer to render now, but it’s more effective for new visitors to the site. (A number that’s been climbing due to the wider distribution of the RSS file. Seems like everyone and their cat is building content syndication systems.)
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09.17.99
Posted in General
at 10 am
Sep 17 Fri (10 AM)
In an Interview in the Washington Post:
Marc Andreessen: Apple’s new products are simply amazing — just last night I was excitedly showing someone the foldout ad for the G4 Macs in this week’s Newsweek — they are amazing machines, with great design and great marketing behind them. It’s been really great to see, it makes you wonder what could have been had Steve Jobs never been kicked out of Apple in 1985. Apple looks like they have a great future in front of them now. All I know is that I want a G4 and one of those huge new 22-inch Apple LCD displays :-).
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/talk/transcripts/henry/henry091699.htm>
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09.16.99
Posted in General
at 12 pm
Turns out my pager’s been down all week again. If you’ve tried to reach me via my pager, try again.
[Eric just came by my desk.]
Ron made a run for lunches at Burger King, and Eric asked Ron if they had any toys. I pulled up <http://www.burgerking.com> and they’ve got a great (if bandwidth-hogging) site that lists all their specials and all their current toys in the Kids section. Well, Eric was taken by the Rocket pen <http://www.burgerking.com/kidsclub/school/rocketpen.htm> but I fell for the Splat Calculator <http://www.burgerking.com/kidsclub/school/calculator.htm>
So Eric just dropped the calulator off on my desk. It so rocks! It even does square roots! Eric says it’s my birthday present. So cool. 🙂
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